My ambivalent relationship with Cyberpunk 2077 began a long time before its release; my expectations were high because I adored The Witcher series, but the constant delays and reneging of both promised and shown aspects made me more and more uninterested in giving it a chance. Moreover, the atrocious release state only solidified my negative view. Not really because of various bugs and optimisation issues, but rather due to how it undelivered even after the numerous renouncements of presented mechanics. I simply could not swallow that, so I avoided buying it, always resentfully looking whenever it appeared on sale.

Yet, even I can only last with my hatred for so long; plus, getting a new laptop seemed like a perfect opportunity to try it out—as perhaps it would persuade me of its qualities? Well, as Michael Scott would say: “Absolutely, but not really.”. I mean, I enjoyed it for what it is! But the more I played, the more its shortcomings hindered my experience.

That being said, diving into the Night City for the first time is an enthralling feeling; it is almost breathtaking to witness such incredibly diverse and detailed places that serve as an excellent background for its mature stories. Galavanting around the streets, hearing numerous different languages at once, and seeing all the futuristic curiosities of any kind are unbelievably immersive. The cherry on top would be its addictive compositions that I immediately had to add to my Spotify list. At that moment, it seemed it all clicked together.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958466528
While that might sound astounding, you will find out soon enough that it is all a ruse; it is a glitz around a hollow core, one that can barely compete with other open worlds. Its shallow substance desperately tries to portray itself as a deep one, presenting you with all the factions and conflicts at every neon corner. In reality, however, you will only taste that during the main narrative and a few side quests that manage to stick out from the mindless influx of repetitive gigs and activities that are mediocre at best and subpar at worst. Because those are all that fill up the streets of the Night City: an endless stream of monotonous robberies, ambushes and collectables. An uninspired checklist to deal with, where your options to interact with the world are immensely limited, making me bored when I was clearing out the map.

Conversely, the storylines are its redeeming qualities that managed to make up for all my harsh criticism. Perhaps it is not surprising since CD Project’s writing was always their strength, and here it shines yet again. How so? It tells mature tales – not in the sense of throwing a bunch of boobies and torn limbs around, although you will enjoy plenty of those too – as it implements many societal, cultural and political themes into one coherent narrative, where morality is difficult to achieve, let alone maintain, as you might expect from this corporation-ruled dystopia.

Thus, many of its topics hit close to home, portraying authentic situations, albeit coated in a cyberpunk setting—showing the worst of humanity if it would continue with its endeavours without any self-reflection. The fact that you are mostly a mere pawn swimmingly complements that. In a way, its themes and how you decide to deal with them perhaps left a bigger impact on me than its characters. Does that mean they are not written well? No. I just did not perceive them in a more personal way like in mentioned The Witcher series. What did not fully convince me, however, were their romance paths, which felt underdeveloped, perhaps a bit rushed. Nevertheless, it is a tiny complaint, as they still manage to provide much-needed sweet and light-hearted moments; just like in our lives.

This leads to the said ambivalency of my thoughts. On the one hand, there is this wearisome open world; on the other hand, its plots wonderfully manage to use the setting to their advantage, which made me lust for more. Funnily enough, I have precisely the same feelings about combat and role-playing mechanics…

It is not that they would be downright terrible; like, the gunplay pleasantly surprised me! I loved my shotgun with fire-powered shells or poisonous rounds in my assault rifle. And their animations and sounds are solid, making me enjoy tons of shootouts. I think this part surprised me the most because I expected it to be much worse, given the fact their previous titles were oriented on swordfights, which are somehow lacklustre here; engaging in melee fights seems like a downgrade, frankly.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958467019
Nevertheless, what I adored more was using the hacking utilities, such as immobilising or blinding your poor foes, causing confusion among their ranks—everyone has some implants now after all; make them regret it! So, even though entering in hectic gunfights is a solid option, especially because of the soundtrack, you can try being stealthy, as well. It is a viable way – and hacking definitely helps with that – but the prepared paths for such an approach almost make it too easy, which is a shame.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958467211
However, as much as liked this gameplay core, its supplemental aspects make it worse rather than better. You see, just as with its presentation of the world, Cyberpunk 2077 pretends to be a robust role-playing experience. Yet that is not the case at all! Throwing several weapons and clothes on me after each encounter, or having dozens of skills where most of them only merely increase random stats by a few per cent, is not deep but rather lazy. There is a ton of unnecessary bloat that adds nothing apart from drowning you in all the garbage that you need to sort out every now and then. It is yet another illusion of making it all feel complex when it is just a shallow mishmash of uninspired ideas. The saddening thing is that the foundations are there, as you get a taste of how different abilities should branch your approaches a bit, but it is, again, underdeveloped.

Thus, Cyberpunk 2077 is just as flawed as the human nature it revolves around. There are several brilliant, perhaps even praise-worthy moments, yet the terrible and scoldable downsides drag it down. In the end, its focus and presentation of the main narrative swayed me to recommend it, but as you can see, it is a very mild recommendation. Overall, it was a bittersweet experience for me, one that I could spend both hating and praising for hours… yes, bittersweet is perhaps the most fitting expression for this adventure. Would I love to try out another story from this universe? Definitely! But it would need to be much more different to make me interested again…

PC Specs and Performance

I played it with an i7 12700H, GTX 3070ti 8GB, and 16GB DDR5 RAM, on SSD at ultra settings, at 60-110 frames per second, at 1920x1080 resolution; with RTX, the framerate was around 40-80 frames. The framerate varies on location, as some still feel rather unoptimized, hence the big gap between frames.

Acknowledgement

This game was gifted to me by a dear friend of mine. Thank you!

Curator link

If you wish to see more thoughts of mine, then galavant to my curator, Blue Lips and their Quips!

[h1][b][i]A miscellany of brilliant ideas, engrossing stories, and underdeveloped aspects...[/i][/b][/h1] My ambivalent relationship with [i]Cyberpunk 2077[/i] began a long time before its release; my expectations were high because I adored [i]The Witcher[/i] series, but the constant delays and reneging of both promised and shown aspects made me more and more uninterested in giving it a chance. Moreover, the atrocious release state only solidified my negative view. Not really because of various bugs and optimisation issues, but rather due to how it undelivered even after the numerous renouncements of presented mechanics. I simply could not swallow that, so I avoided buying it, always resentfully looking whenever it appeared on sale. Yet, even I can only last with my hatred for so long; plus, getting a new laptop seemed like a perfect opportunity to try it out—as perhaps it would persuade me of its qualities? Well, as [i]Michael Scott[/i] would say: [i]“Absolutely, but not really.”[/i]. I mean, I enjoyed it for what it is! But the more I played, the more its shortcomings hindered my experience. That being said, diving into the Night City for the first time is an enthralling feeling; it is almost breathtaking to witness such incredibly diverse and detailed places that serve as an excellent background for its mature stories. Galavanting around the streets, hearing numerous different languages at once, and seeing all the futuristic curiosities of any kind are unbelievably immersive. The cherry on top would be its addictive compositions that I immediately had to add to my [i]Spotify[/i] list. At that moment, it seemed it all clicked together. https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958466528 While that might sound astounding, you will find out soon enough that it is all a ruse; it is a glitz around a hollow core, one that can barely compete with other open worlds. Its shallow substance desperately tries to portray itself as a deep one, presenting you with all the factions and conflicts at every neon corner. In reality, however, you will only taste that during the main narrative and a few side quests that manage to stick out from the mindless influx of repetitive gigs and activities that are mediocre at best and subpar at worst. Because those are all that fill up the streets of the Night City: an endless stream of monotonous robberies, ambushes and collectables. An uninspired checklist to deal with, where your options to interact with the world are immensely limited, making me bored when I was clearing out the map. Conversely, the storylines are its redeeming qualities that managed to make up for all my harsh criticism. Perhaps it is not surprising since [i]CD Project’s[/i] writing was always their strength, and here it shines yet again. How so? It tells mature tales – not in the sense of throwing a bunch of boobies and torn limbs around, although you will enjoy plenty of those too – as it implements many societal, cultural and political themes into one coherent narrative, where morality is difficult to achieve, let alone maintain, as you might expect from this corporation-ruled dystopia. Thus, many of its topics hit close to home, portraying authentic situations, albeit coated in a cyberpunk setting—showing the worst of humanity if it would continue with its endeavours without any self-reflection. The fact that you are mostly a mere pawn swimmingly complements that. In a way, its themes and how you decide to deal with them perhaps left a bigger impact on me than its characters. Does that mean they are not written well? No. I just did not perceive them in a more personal way like in mentioned [i]The Witcher[/i] series. What did not fully convince me, however, were their romance paths, which felt underdeveloped, perhaps a bit rushed. Nevertheless, it is a tiny complaint, as they still manage to provide much-needed sweet and light-hearted moments; just like in our lives. This leads to the said ambivalency of my thoughts. On the one hand, there is this wearisome open world; on the other hand, its plots wonderfully manage to use the setting to their advantage, which made me lust for more. Funnily enough, I have precisely the same feelings about combat and role-playing mechanics… It is not that they would be downright terrible; like, the gunplay pleasantly surprised me! I loved my shotgun with fire-powered shells or poisonous rounds in my assault rifle. And their animations and sounds are solid, making me enjoy tons of shootouts. I think this part surprised me the most because I expected it to be much worse, given the fact their previous titles were oriented on swordfights, which are somehow lacklustre here; engaging in melee fights seems like a downgrade, frankly. https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958467019 Nevertheless, what I adored more was using the hacking utilities, such as immobilising or blinding your poor foes, causing confusion among their ranks—everyone has some implants now after all; make them regret it! So, even though entering in hectic gunfights is a solid option, especially because of the soundtrack, you can try being stealthy, as well. It is a viable way – and hacking definitely helps with that – but the prepared paths for such an approach almost make it too easy, which is a shame. https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958467211 However, as much as liked this gameplay core, its supplemental aspects make it worse rather than better. You see, just as with its presentation of the world, [i]Cyberpunk 2077[/i] pretends to be a robust role-playing experience. Yet that is not the case at all! Throwing several weapons and clothes on me after each encounter, or having dozens of skills where most of them only merely increase random stats by a few per cent, is not deep but rather lazy. There is a ton of unnecessary bloat that adds nothing apart from drowning you in all the garbage that you need to sort out every now and then. It is yet another illusion of making it all feel complex when it is just a shallow mishmash of uninspired ideas. The saddening thing is that the foundations are there, as you get a taste of how different abilities should branch your approaches a bit, but it is, again, underdeveloped. Thus, [i]Cyberpunk 2077[/i] is just as flawed as the human nature it revolves around. There are several brilliant, perhaps even praise-worthy moments, yet the terrible and scoldable downsides drag it down. In the end, its focus and presentation of the main narrative swayed me to recommend it, but as you can see, it is a [i]very[/i] mild recommendation. Overall, it was a bittersweet experience for me, one that I could spend both hating and praising for hours… yes, [i]bittersweet[/i] is perhaps the most fitting expression for this adventure. Would I love to try out another story from this universe? Definitely! But it would need to be much more different to make me interested again… [b]PC Specs and Performance[/b][quote]I played it with an i7 12700H, GTX 3070ti 8GB, and 16GB DDR5 RAM, on SSD at ultra settings, at 60-110 frames per second, at 1920x1080 resolution; with RTX, the framerate was around 40-80 frames. The framerate varies on location, as some still feel rather unoptimized, hence the big gap between frames.[/quote] [b]Acknowledgement[/b] [quote]This game was gifted to me by a dear friend of mine. Thank you![/quote] [b]Curator link[/b] [url=https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/41545671][quote]If you wish to see more thoughts of mine, then galavant to my curator, [b]Blue Lips and their Quips[/b]!